Obama maintains key lead on Romney as fallout from weak TV debate recedes

Reuters, WASHINGTON

US President Barack Obama retained a slim lead over Republican US presidential candidate Mitt Romney in the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll on Monday, as he appeared to have stemmed the bleeding from his poor first debate. Three weeks before the Nov. 6 US election, Obama leads Romney by 2 percentage points, with 47 percent support from likely voters in the national online poll, to 45 percent support for Romney.

The margin was small enough to be a virtual tie, but Obama’s slight edge broadened from Sunday, when he went ahead of Romney by 1 point after falling behind in the wake of Romney’s decisive victory in their first presidential debate on Oct. 3.

FOOTHOLD

“Romney received a bump from that first debate, but the very nature of a bump is it recedes again,” Ipsos vice president Julia Clark said. “We’re now seeing Obama regaining a little bit of a foothold as we go into the second debate. They go into the debate on equal footing.”

The two men were set to meet again last night at New York’s Hofstra University in a debate that Obama needed to win to grab back the campaign momentum he has lost. The third debate is set for Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Florida.

Obama’s support in the new Reuters/Ipsos survey was particularly strong among the 10 percent of registered voters who have already cast their ballots. Fifty-five percent said they voted for the Democrat, compared with 43 percent for his Republican challenger.

Romney and his fellow Republicans have been hitting Obama hard over his handling of diplomatic security, blaming his administration for attacks in Egypt and Libya on Sept. 11. The US ambassador and three other Americans were killed in Libya.

However, the poll did not find a groundswell of condemnation for the White House. Forty-five percent of registered voters approved of Obama’s handling of the situation in Libya and Egypt and 40 percent disapproved. Thirty-eight percent backed Romney on the issue, compared with 36 percent who did not.

The incumbent also regained ground in several policy areas since the first week after his bad debate.

HEALTHCARE

Forty-two percent of registered voters said they thought Obama had a better plan for healthcare, compared with 35 percent who said the same of Romney. Obama’s rating was up 4 points from Oct. 10.

Obama’s ratings on taxes also went up by 4 points, as did voters’ views of his plans for Social Security and Medicare which rose by 3 points each.

Romney’s scores each went up by 3 points on how he would handle the war on terrorism and gay marriage, although Obama was still ahead on both.

Romney kept a big lead of 38 percent to 29 percent when respondents were asked who has a better plan for handling the US’ deficit, and a small lead of 38 percent to 37 percent on who would better handle the country’s economy. Obama was just ahead, at 39 percent to 38 percent, on jobs and employment.

The precision of the Reuters/Ipsos online poll series is measured using a gauge known as a credibility interval. In this case, the poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points for registered voters and 2.6 for likely voters.

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